[inferiorhuman]

I remember back about a decade ago I went to Vancouver BC on the company's dime. Turns out the corporate card was set to "PIN priority" or whatever so you could not use it as a chip and signature card in Canada. Unfortunately US Bank sent my PIN to me at home the day I left for the trip. The metro had caught on fire the day before so I didn't actually have to deal with paying for transit.

Anyways, with the Clipper card if you're going to use the app just add it to your phone's wallet and use your phone to tap the card readers. Alternatively you should still be able to top your card up at any place that sells Clipper cards – but that may take a day or two to update. As annoying as that is, both BART and Muni made paying for a subway ride with cash as excruciating as possible. You were boned if you wanted to pay with a $20 bill. Or if you wanted to use a credit card to pay for a BART ticket at the some of the ticket machines at some of the poorer stations.

Reach out to Streetsblog or SFist if you want to bubble up the complaint.